Challenge heats up Lehman Township tax collector race

Republican candidate for Lehman Township tax collector Hal H. Harris has taken his fight to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court to remove opposing candidate Democrat Diane Hinson from the ballot.

BETH BRELJE

Republican candidate for Lehman Township tax collector Hal H. Harris has taken his fight to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court to remove opposing candidate Democrat Diane Hinson from the ballot.

Harris had asked the Pike County Court of Common Pleas to remove Hinson, saying she falsely represented herself as a "licensed Realtor" on her financial disclosure papers when her license had expired in May 2012.

Hinson showed the court that she had met the continuing education requirements to remain a Realtor in 2012 and her license certification was signed by an instructor of Pocono Real Estate Academy on March 20, 2013.

Judge Joseph Kameen noted that Hinson had been active in the real estate market for years and that calling herself a "Realtor" was not an attempt to falsely deceive voters regarding her qualifications.

Harris asked the Commonwealth Court to reconsider. Commonwealth Judge Mary Hannah Leavitt affirmed Kameen's decision to deny the petition to remove Hinson, but on different grounds.

As a Republican, Leavitt said, Harris cannot vote for a Democrat in the May 21 primary election. She dismissed Harris' petition for lack of standing.

This month Harris, representing himself, asked the Pennsylvania Supreme Court to hear an appeal in the case.

In court papers, Hinson's attorney Lawrence Otter called the request frivolous and brought in bad faith.

"Counsel respectfully suggested that Harris drop the matter to save everyone the time and cost of the appeal," Otter wrote in response to Harris' petition. "Harris arrogantly continued on his reckless path unimpeded by the legal knowledge that he could not file the challenge at the outset."

It is uncertain if the court will move on the appeal request before the primary election on May 21.

Harris has a difficult financial past. He is a tax preparer, manager and has a financial interest in the Marshalls Creek business Tax Prep USA. Yet he owes a federal tax lien of $8,675 for unpaid taxes from 2003, 2006, 2007 and 2008, according to an Internal Revenue Service record at the Pike County Courthouse.

Court papers from North Carolina say Harris filed for bankruptcy in 2001, claiming $42 million in debts and $11,000 in assets, related to a real estate development for low-income housing in the 1990s in Durham, N.C.

He has consistently lost in court representing himself. Harris has brought the North Carolina case, his child support case in New York, and now this election case to state supreme courts.

In a speech at a Lehman Township candidate event, Harris promised that if elected tax collector, he would take the matter of unfair taxes to the highest court in the land.